We’re entering the musical season, when community groups and professional organizations all along the Niagara Escarpment perform pre-Christmas concerts. The Georgetown Choral Society will present “A Candlelight Christmas” on Dec. 4 & 5 at Georgetown Christian Reformed Church.
     I used to be a member of this large choir. With as many as 110 members, we could make such a loud sound that sometimes my ears would ring and I would feel dizzy from being in the midst of all the vibrations. What’s even more difficult, however, is having a large choir sing softly and clearly.
     Director Dale Wood achieves this through patience and humour in rehearseals. I never saw him lose his temper. Only rarely would he say that we wouldn’t perform a particular number if we didn’t practise it on our own outside of rehearseal. When I became too busy with other stuff, I realized that I had to drop out of the choral society.
     I still love choral music, though, for its power and sweep and majesty. And it’s utterly amazing when amateurs from small towns produce such spectacular sounds.
     There is plenty to choose from this December. Dale Wood also directs the Georgetown Children’s Chorus and the Achill Choral Society, which performs in the Caledon/Orangeville area.
     What concerts are in your community this month? Do you enjoy choral singing, as a listener or participant?

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     The smell is other worldly: a mixture of beeswax candles and rose incense. A heavenly scent that hits you when you enter the church. And when the priests greet you in the traditional manner of laying cheek to cheek, twice, perhaps three times, you’re engulfed in yet more scent of roses. The priests anoint their beards with rose oil, at least for feasts like Easter.

     It’s a transcendent experience, and can be heightened by their long services of three hours or more, during which all but the weak stand the whole time. And if you haven’t slept much the night before, and are still fasting, because I’m still talking about Easter here, the headiness can be too much. Once I thought I might faint.

     I’m describing St. Elias Ukrainian Catholic Church on the outskirts of Brampton. About 15 or 20 years ago (can it be that long?) I used to go to that church on occasion, as a visitor, with a devout friend who was attracted to their liturgy and singing. Even I found myself timidly singing along in Ukrainian, although I don’t speak a word of it, unable to resist the wonderful, eerie harmonies.

     I am thrilled that this weekend, on Fri. Nov. 27 and Sun. Nov. 29, Georgetown Bach Chorale will perform in St. Elias. And they’re performing one of my favourite works, Händel’s Messiah. The chorale is a small group of good singers led by Ron Greidanus, who will conduct while he plays harpsichord. The accompanying orchestra will perform on period instruments.

     For the second year, Escarpment Views has been a media sponsor for the chorale.

     I’m looking forward to enjoying one of my favourite musical works in one of my favourite churches. It promises to be a mystical evening. I’ll be sure to bring tissues.

     Tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for students and are available at one of our loyal advertisers, Foodstuffs on Georgetown’s Main St. Tickets may also be available at the door of St. Elias on Heritage Rd. just north of Hwy. 7, if they haven’t been sold out.

     Will you be there? Are you a fan of Messiah? Have you ever been to a church like St. Elias?

Tags: arts & entertainment | 1 Comment »

Here’s some interesting arts news I received, but its timeframe doesn’t let us publish it in the magazine — it came too late for our winter issue, but will be over before our spring issue comes out.

     VSA arts wants people around the world to get out their art supplies and create a visual representation of the word “disability” for its International Collaborative Art Project. Anyone can participate by downloading a postcard and creating a visual representation of impressions, experiences, and perceptions associated with disability. All languages are accepted. 
     “We want everyone to create a postcard that interprets the word ‘disability’ and mail it in!” remarks Soula Antoniou, president of VSA arts. “Everyone has thoughts and ideas about ‘disability.’ For the cost of a stamp, anyone anywhere in the world can be included in this art project.”
  The postcards will become part of an exhibit that will be displayed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts during the 2010 International VSA arts Festival, June 6­­–12.
     The deadline for receipt of postcards is February 5, 2010. Visit http://www.vsarts.org/postcardproject for entry instructions. Entry instructions are available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian online. Large print and braille formats of this call for entries are available upon request. In addition to a Washington, D.C., exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the International Collaborative Art Project will be displayed online at www.vsarts.org/postcardproject . 

About VSA arts

VSA arts is an international nonprofit organization founded 35 years ago by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to create a society where people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts. VSA arts provides educators, parents, and artists with the resources and tools to support arts programming in schools and communities.  VSA arts showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities and promotes increased access to the arts for all people.  Each year, 7 million people participate in VSA arts’ programs through a nationwide network of affiliates and in 54 countries around the world.

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     The weather is gorgeous right now, sunny but cool, no bugs, no harsh wind…perfect for some of the harder chores that are too uncomfortable on hot, humid days. I’m enjoying turning my compost pile, collecting the finished brown, fluffy compost and raking it into my bare vegetable beds. I’ve done some weeding. There’s tons to do in my perennial flower bed, but my vegetable beds aren’t too bad at the moment.
     I’ve transplanted some lavender to what I hope will be a warmer corner of the herb garden. I’m adding cedar rails where I need to build up the edges of my raised beds. I’ve raked up some of the apples under the trees on my front lawn. I’ve pulled out some of the periwinkle where it was escaping into a woodlot. The stuff is invasive and a threat to wildflowers, so I’ve turned off it.
     I’ve been stacking firewood and breaking dead brush into bushel baskets as kindling. I’ve even raked some sawdust and bark and deposited it where I need fill to be able to ride the tractor mower.
     These lovely days somewhat make up for the poor summer we had. Are you doing any fall gardening?

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     The winter issue is at the printer. For me, that means I have a few days to dig down to the top of my desk and work on other assignments, some of which I’ve had to put off while I finalize and proof the magazine.

     For Mike, it means organizing and finalizing our mailing lists and deciding our Canada Post distribution of free copies. We try to change the free distribution each issue, in order to introduce the magazine to as many people as possible.

     The cover of our winter issue is a little unusual for us. At first I had been thinking of going with a traditional, beautiful Christmas theme. But then I thought it looked a little predictable and – well, sleepy. I keep trying to improve our covers to make them more arresting, interesting, irresistable even.

     Then I took a closer look at one of the photos we’re using in our icewine feature. It’s an entertainer portraying Jack Frost, so he has white makeup covering his face, and he’s…I’ll just say he’s engaged in an unusual, colourful activity. As well as being an interesting photo, it also has the right technical composition for a magazine cover. There’s a science as well as an art to a good magazine cover, and I aim to apply all the rules and ideas I can.

     One thing I insist on with our covers: they have to be “real journalism.” They have to be photographs of what is actually contained in our issues. I don’t want to use stock photography that anyone can access. Our covers are the work of photographers who illustrate our features and departments. A photo in our magazine has been taken by someone we know, usually for a specific assignment. We’re the real deal. Our covers are not just pretty pictures that have nothing to do with our contents. Our covers are meant to show you what you’ll find inside.

     Do you agree with this approach, or am I being too uptight? What do you think a good cover should be like? Is there a cover you remember as being particularly striking? I mean any magazine, any time, not just ours.

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     On Nov. 20 & 21, the United Way of Milton will host “A Town & Country Christmas House Tour.” This is your chance to see six Milton houses decorated for Christmas by professionals.

     If last year’s tour is anything to go by, the houses will be amazing. Not every style may be your taste, but the variety and lavishness of the decorating is what makes these tours so interesting. You just might pick up a wildly creative idea or two that you can use in your own home.

     On Fri. Nov. 20, the tour is by bus because it includes a pre-tour dinner and wine and snacks after the tour. It sounds like a wonderful party on wheels for $70. Plus the houses will be all lit up in the dark hours.

     The Sat. Nov. 21 tour is self guided and costs $25. You can visit the homes in any order, at any time.

     The tour is a fundraiser for the United Way of Milton, so you’re supporting a good cause with your good time. Tickets are available at 905 875 2550 or campaign@miltonunitedway.ca.

     If you’d like to see what the homes were like on last year’s tour, look for the Winter issue, coming out around Dec. 1. We visited the homes on Milton’s tour as well as the one mansion on the Halton Hills’ tour, and Mike took plenty of photos. We tried to capture some of the fabulous scenes displayed there. I can only say that it must be nice to live like that over Christmas.

     Does your community hold Christmas house tours? If you go on them, why do you? What do you get out of them?

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     It happened again just recently. We got an order for some packs of notecards, and it came on the order form in the magazine, but the form had been photocopied.
     Almost every order we get, whether for subscriptions or notecards, comes on a photocopy. It happens so often that there has to be a reason. People don’t want to cut up the magazine. People must want to keep the magazine. As evidence that they’re keeping back issues, we noticed that the latest order form was on a photocopy from the summer issue.
     This is why we tell our advertisers not to put coupons in their ads. We’re not a newspaper to be cut up and tossed out. Coupons don’t work in a magazine that people are keeping in one piece.
     I’m thrilled to see this. It’s a high compliment and a tribute to our contributors and to our art director, Branimir Zlamalik, who makes our issues look so good that people don’t want to rip them apart.
     If they don’t keep the back issues, perhaps they pass them on to others. If they don’t do that, we expect and hope they recycle them. That way, our old issues could become part of the recycled stock that goes into our new issues! That would be true recycling.
     What about you? What publications do you keep, and what do you do with the ones you don’t?

Tags: magazine publishing, subscriber benefits | 2 Comments »

     Last weekend we saw our theatre columnist Seana McKenna in a performance about the lives and work of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. She read the narration while Susan Platts sang German Lieder to Rena Sharon’s piano accompaniment.

     Mike had invited his Aunt Mac to this, so we picked her up in London. We lunched at the Delmar, a diner that doesn’t seem to have changed since it opened in the ‘50s or ‘60s. Aunt Mac told us she used to go to it when it was just a trailer.

     The Delmar was packed that Sunday. Career waitresses served us quickly and efficiently from a simple menu of good food. We pointed out our feature article by Wally Davis about his WWII experience, and because he had been born in London, the waitress took a supply of copies to give out.

     After the performance in St. Mary’s, we returned to London for supper at The Waltzing Weasel where Aunt Mac’s grandson Chad is manager. When Chad saw the article by his Uncle “Bunt,” he also took a stack of magazines.

     It seems that once you have a connection with London, London remains interested in you. I think Wally Bunt Davis would be pleased.

     Remembrance Day is approaching and I think we’ll attend a ceremony with Wally’s article to give out. There are fewer WWII vets alive each year and their memories are important to capture and value. I think Wally Bunt Davis would agree.

     What are your thoughts about small towns, Remembrance Day or war veterans?

Tags: arts & entertainment, history | 1 Comment »